Be
Innocent Life
Story of Abraham Zandman Introduction
This demands the Jewish people existential survival fitness. Therefore every story which tells about the humanity, courage and
resourcefulness of a Jew at that time is very important. Such is the story of Abraham Zandman, who during the troubles in Poland and Russia during the war, preserved and developed the concept of creative spirit. Contents 1.
Before the War A. Religious Childhhood in Gostinin and
Lodz B. Secular Adulthood in Warsaw C. Outbreak of War 2. During the War D. Soviet Union Theft Method G. Bombs Foundry and Friends 3. After the War H. Ruined Poland 1. Before the War A. Religious Childhhood in
Gostinin and Lodz I was born in 1906 in the town of Gostinin, Poland, near
the city of Lodz. My father, Yaakov Aryeh Zandman, Follower of the great Rabbi
of Gur, was a rabbi and a grocer. I was about five when Moses, my oldest brother, a student
at Yeshivat Lomza, died from tuberculosis. He got a cold in the mikveh bath,
where he went every midnight. Moses was an ascetic who learned Kabbalah, and was very
popular among the yeshiva students. After his death, one of his closest friends got mad. He
was standing at the window of his house, shouting: "Moses died because you
did not return to religion"!. When I was ten my mother died. My older sister, Gutta,
became caretaker of the children. At the age of fiveteen I was sent to study at
a yeshiva in Lodz. My father remarried. I was a son of poor in Lodz, who ate by "days"
I received from the Yeshiva's management. Every day in the week at a different
householder, who agreed to support with meals poor yeshiva students. Sometimes
I slept on a bench in the synagogue. After two years I got tired, and decided
to go home. I came back to Gostinin, and along with my older brother
we were the founders of the local branch of "Workers Association of
Israel" party. My older brother and I decided to immigrate to Israel. We
wanted to learn a useful skill, and we chose carpentry. Our father demanded
from us to learn from professional Gentiles, because he feared that we shell
become secular. This was a real threat with Jewish artisans. I worked in a carpentery for about a year. Then I got an
offer to work at a carpentry in Lodz. But I'd already cut my hair wigs and had
more secular customs, and my family in this city was very religious. So I left
Lodz after a brief period and went to Warsaw. B. Secular Adulthood in
Warsaw Two years I shared, in a cramped hostel in Warsaw, not a
large bed with a guy named Burstein. We slept against each other, with the head
of each one close to the other's foot. Burstein was very talented in theater, could play the
violin well, had a talent and a voice for singing, could act, draw characters,
and dress and do makeup to players according to drawings. Thanks to him I became interested in the theater art. I knew through him a girl named Pola Kovalski, who became
my wife. We had two sons, David and Michael. They were five and seven years old
when the war broke out. My wife was an excellent dressmaker, and earned good
money from sewing fancy dresses to Warsaw's elite women. I was hired as a
production worker in an electric wires factory. It was one of the only Jewish
factories in Poland, and one of the few who employed Jews. I worked there for
several years on the assembly line of the wires. Then I became a maintenance
man. All the time I
continued to learn on my own and became self-taught scholar. Once, while
walking a few hours, I read a book of hundreds pages. I was active in
amateurs' theater that I founded with friends. The theater was called "The
Central Ensemble for Drama." I was there an actor and assistant director. The ensemble
produced dozens of plays, reduced to a smaller format. We were famous in Warsaw
and its surroundings. Among other things we were minor players in "In
Poland's Forests", which was made acording to a novel by David Opashoto. I started my
career in theater as a prompter in one of the largest Jewish theaters. I was a member
in "Workers of Zion Left." Party. When we, five party activists,
turned to the activist Gruenbaum from big "Mapai" party, to provide
us certificates for immigration to Israel, he drew us a little circle in black
pencil, and said: "This is the land of Israel." He went around the
circle with spiral growing lines, and then cut it straight to center.
"You", he said, "come to Israel after you have made big rounds.
We, however, we got it straight." He referred to
the Communist side of my party, who opposed his party's pure Zionism. He gave us five
certificates. But since I had a woman, and needed two, I did not take one. I was also a
secretary in the Jewish Wood Workers' union in Warsaw. I was positioned at the
Employment Bureau and delivered working days, right up until the outbreak of
war. I joined the
Jewish Brigade, who had planned to join the socialist forces who fought in
Spain during the Civil War. Only the beginning of World War prevented the trip. C. Outbreak of War On 9 September
1939, several days after the war began, at midnight, the prime minister of
Poland turned on the radio, in a dramatic announcement to the Polish people:
"Polish citizens! The Nazis invaded Poland, and are moving toward Warsaw.
All men who are able to take up arms should evacuate the city and move east to
the Bug area, where we shell provide them with weapons, and get organized to
attack the invader." The roumor then
was that the Nazis are not going to hurt women and children. I talked with my
wife, and we agreed that she will stay with the kids, and I will get to the
east. In three in the
morning I went out to the street. We lived in Mila Street, in a large
apartments building with an inner yard. The street was full of people with all
their belongings in carts, and they all went east. We walked for
three days and nights until we got to the Bug area. The Germans bombed us from
the air many times. But in the Bug
did not wait for us no guns and no commanders. There was also no way back. So
after several weeks we boarded the train to the Russian border, to Lvov. 2. During the War D. Soviet Union Theft
Method When we got to
the Soviet Union, after our flight from Hitler, we thought we were coming to
the land of freedom, land of equality. We came from
Poland, where there was a big difference between rich and poor, between
employer and landlord. We were young and we thought that now we come to a land
where the sun shines on everyone. As the sun shines on everyone equally, in the
same way all people are equal. We have found that inequality is so big there,
so obvious, that the situation is worse than in capitalist countries. The first thing
we saw when we crossed the border in Ukraine, and looked through the windows of
the train, were people going with tattered rags. Their legs were wrapped with
rags for shoes. The children were not dressed. Women were carrying wood on the
head. We said: "What!? This is the socialist country where everyone is
living well”!? They took us to
Donbass, and for the first two weeks we received special food. When we entered
the dining room, no one from the city entered. We saw that by the windows there
are children and few adults, looking at what we eat. They were with such eyes,
that it was just not normal. Only afterward it became apparent to us that the
food prepared for us was special. Those who worked there, all the workers,
received more regular food. In October there
is a holiday there called Oktoberskaya, the revolution holiday, and balls are
arranged. They arranged a ball a big school, and invited us, a group of about
fifteen people who came from Poland. They prepared a
beautiful table with white tablecloth, a lot of drinking, good food, an
actor-singer with an accordion, and we sat and we had a pretty good time. Suddenly I stood
up and went into the next room. I saw sitting there about ten workers, without
a tablecloth, with a little vodka and black bread, in the dark. I asked them:
"Where are you from? Why do you not coming to eat and celebrate with
us?" They replied:
"We are the workers". I saw what a gap
exists between managers and workers. Much worse than in the capitalist
countries. I could not imagine having a ball over there with the workers in
such conditions. It affected us
very negatively. We saw that it is not true what they say, of building
socialism. Socialism, apparently, is only for a thin layer, upper, and the
worker suffers on. In food, clothing, and equality. A few months
later I moved to Kharkov, and worked in "Leika" cameras factory. We
wanted to enter the dining room for lunch. It turned out that there are two
dining rooms: one for managers, and one for workers. Again we
realized that on each step of the way inequality is striking. In capitalist
countries, if you did not have money, you could not enter the restaurant. Here
was something else. Not about money. Very simple, putting up people in ranks.
That degree and that degree. The workers has special conditions, lower then the
conditions of the managers. We just said
that our God died. Because it was all our faith: we're coming to a land where
socialism is built, where there will be no such gap between people. I worked as a
clerk in Poltava in supply for dining rooms and restaurants. Restaurant was a
place where you could get food for money. Dining rooms were next to each
factory, for the workers. I provided all
the commodities, like sugar, sweets and fat, and even firewood in winter. So I
had access to all these places, and I saw how life there are. The distribution
was very careful, miserly, for the dining rooms of factories. In contrast, the
restaurants recieved much much. For hundreds of dining room workers we got half
a sack of sugar. For the restaurant, where a lot less people ate, we got a sack
and a half. I got the
division from the office. There were a manager and bookkeeper overthere. They delivered
the most for restaurants, where the money paid in them was or from the black-market
or if you earned more. Additionally,
thefts there were on large scale. In the truck in which I carried the supply
sat behind two porters. They made holes in the sacks of sugar, and took out to the
pocket or a bag. Until I brought the sugar to its destination, a quarter of
sack was missing. Sometimes we traveled in a heavy snow, and there were goodies
on the truck, like cookies or candies. On the way they took and threw a box
here and a box there into the snow, and made a sign of where. I could not
understand. Before we went I counted it all. When I came to the destination it
was missing and missing. On the one hand the
suppliers stole. If something came after all to the dining room, the cooks and
those who worked there also stole whatever was at hand. Until the food reached
the table it was diluted, worthless, and nothing left out of it. All the stealing
went to the black market. There was a shortage of everything, especially food. There
was value for each piece of bread, any small item of food, and the price of a
piece of bread on the black market was ten times the official price. When I
came to the market I saw children aged ten, fifteen, standing and holding for
sale in their hands, the first a piece of bread, the second a small candy, a
third number of cigarettes. So it was sold, and there was a big rush of buyers
for these things. The queues where
food was sold officially were very long. We had to get up at four o'clock in
the morning, sometimes even two, to a store selling bread. Sometimes in
temperatures of forty degrees below zero. We stood there from two after
midnight until eight in the morning, when the bread arrived. But the queue was
so long, that when it came to the last people, there was no bread anymore. "Not
enough! Missing! Done!", was the answer from the counter. We stood in line
all night, and finally went home without bread. We said, we who came
from Poland, to the citizens there: "What, what happened? Why should it be
that there is no food, a piece of bread for anyone? Why must everyone go now to
the black market, pay ten times, and there is nothing left at home?" They answered
back: "war, war." There was then a
war against Finland. Finland against Russia is like a mouse against an
elephant. Ukraine here, thousands of miles from the border with Finland. So far
away. They felt as if all Russia is involved in the war, and all food has to go
for the military. I asked them:
"Before the war it was better?" They replied:
"All the time we are at war." They've become used to that as this is how
it should be. Most people
accepted the situation for granted. Either everyone has been brainwashed and
they said about it all: "it should be", or they were dumbs. I could
not understand. Their behavior was like that of big kids. If we heard
something, some kind of protest, then only from the side, and not exactly in w
form of protest, but that one have to suffer and there is no other choice. There were a lot of guys who wanted to return from the
Soviet Union in 1940, including me. It was said that there will be civilians
exchanges between Poland and Russia. Russia will returns the people who fled
from Poland, and take those who are dangerous for Germany. We waited in Lvov until the replacement. One day, the NKVD put suddenly, at four o'clock in the
morning, trucks in the streets. Within an hour, they were loaded with several
thousand who fled to the east from the Germans, because they thought that in
that way they will save themselves. They took us all to the famous Brigitkas jail. They put
in a room designed for twenty, a hundred men. Sleep was impossible, just sit.
It was summer, the heat is terrible, and so we spent three weeks. There were inside people from all society layers,
including rich people from Lvov, who were arrested as dangerous to society. We spent the time with questions of "What will happen"
and all kinds of guesses. So I gave a suggestion that anyone who remembers
anything interesting, some kind of a story, or song, or can quote, will tell
it, to pass the time. I remember even that I started, because I gave the
proposal. I recited to them the story 'Bonche Shut up', by I.L. Peretz: Bonche reached heaven and was asked: "What do you
want? You can get everything, everything you want!" He, who all his life was hungry, never ate and filled up,
and a piece of buttered bread had not seen ever, because he was a very poor
man, said: "Oh! I want a roll with butter". We sat there for three weeks, and received almost no food
at all. The allegory was that then when we shell get out, all that we shell
wish for will be just to eat a roll with butter. E. Gulag in Siberia One evening they
took us all and put into freight cars. A place for twenty people became for
sixty. We received only bread and water, and traveled about ten days on the
train. We were carried to a place far away, deep in Russia, in Siberia. They took us out
to an empty place, we did not see anything except woods, and said: "There
you go! This is the place! Make your life here. log trees, build shacks, and go
to work in logging. That will be your life all the time." After two
months, they called each of us to the NKVD office and said: "sign!
Sign!" - "What does this say?" - "As 'a person dangerous to society', you get
three years in a labor camp." So we had to
live there. It was near the
river Kolva, near the Arctic Circle. The summer night was short as a flash. The
sun went down and immediately came up. There were camps
for prisoners there from the days of Queen Katherine. It was a dense network,
and no one could escape. If you run away from one, you were caught by the other. The Camps were for
working in logging. Our camp was one where they cut the trees. In another camp,
on the river bank, they sent the timber. This was done by high built criss-cross
barges. Downstream there were wood-processing plants. Everything was
done with strict bookkeeping: signings the timber, documentation, and phone
messages for delivery. Our only tool
was a simple ax. It served as a hammer, saw, spade, knife and so on. We had
people who were masters of using it. In the camp there were several thousand people. Most of
them thieves, rapists, murderers and all kinds of criminals. But there were also several hundred 'political', people sentenced
for 'counter revolution', section fifty-eight in the low. The punishment was
twenty, twenty-five years, and at least ten years. We were several hundred who got three years. We organized ourselves to live there. Prepare the dining
room, kitchen and all the rest. We had to get up at five in the morning, stand in line to
the kitchen, and get a piece of bread and soup, which was a lot of water and
some beans, something terrible. We were an hour in line. We were thousands, and the
facilities were not so big so they could serve the people quickly. Until we
received the ration it was already six o'clock, and we had to go to work. We went to work
with an armed guard from the NKVD accompanied by dogs. The walk took an hour
and a half. The place where we were chopping the trees was at a distance about
eight miles away from the camp. We got good
clothes, and a supervisor even stood by the gate watching. To those who were
not dressed well, or were not wearing good shoes, he did not let go to work.
But winter was very, very strong. The snow was over five feet, six feet deep.
We went with one foot into the snow, and we could not get it out. I cannot
explain how we reached our destination. In thw working
site our trousers were very wet from the snow and the cold froze them
completely. They were as made of tin. We wanted to make some fire from wood, which
was in abundance, but the soldier began to shout, "keep warm at
work!". We had to work to warm up. He did not let us to light a fire, but at
twelve in noon, and then we could rest for half an hour. The worst
problem was with a piece of bread we got. Those who went for work received
eight hundred grams of bread. But this piece of black bread was filled with
water. Eight hundred grams were only a small slice. All the argument between us
was what to do with the slice. If we eat it all at once, at six in the morning,
what will be during the day? We shell starve. Split it to pieces? Eat some
immediately and the rest during the day? It is not safe. There were so many
stealings that it was impossible to save. Even if you watched with thousand
eyes, the bread was stolen from you. So the best was to eat. It enters the
stomach and it is impossible to steal it anymore. But all along the day we were
hungry and starving. We worked until
five six o'clock. When we came to the camp it was after seven. Again we stood
an hour in line, to get the soup, this time without bread. The clothes were
wet from the snow and rain. There was an invalid who was the guardian of our shack.
He took the clothes of the whole group, and hanged them to dry in front of the
stove. The clothes were not dry enough until four o'clock in the morning, when
we started to get dressed. He brought them almost dry. I put on my clothes,
stood in line for food, and the trousers became hard from the cold, which was often
more than forty degrees celsius below zero. Many have fallen
because they could not hold on. The criminals stole whatever came to hand and got along. Old
timers 'political' worked in offices or in the kitchen, or received packages
from home, and also got along somehow. But we were new in Russia, and did not
receive any help. Anyone who just
stopped to think of himself, to hold himself clean and all the rest, became sick
immediatly. There were a lot of lice, and lice are diseases. It was necessary
to wash up, prepare and clean everything. You also had to eat everything.
Because there was food that not everyone could eat. They gave food that was was
really not good. Those who could not eat and only drank water, they lacked
vitamins, got swollen and died. Died like flies from it. Many, many fell.
Particularly those from the Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They could not survive.
They were not used to this. We from Poland survived more. There was no hospital
there. There was a paramedic of some kind, but there was not enough medicine. Every
day people who perished from cold or hunger were taken out from the the
barracks. Many many were buried in the woods. Every morning we took there
several corpse-filled carts. Sometimes, in turn, me too. We saw the dead arms
and legs frozen like sticks. So they threw them into the common pit. Once the
temperature was fifty degrees below zero. After minus forty it was not forced
to go to work, and only who wanted came out. They came to us and said that
whoever wants to go to work, will get a double ration and so on. I was a squad
leader. I came to my group, twenty-five people, and said that those who want to
earn a double ration of food will come and go to work. I was well
dressed and warm. First to say: "I'll". I was followed
by four more. We took the
guard with a dog, and we went six miles into the forest. The air was so
quiet, you could almost hear the frost. We felt it. You could stand the cold
because there was no wind. It was so quiet. We started to
work and warmed up. We made a double amount. We had to make four cubic meters,
but we did eight. When we returned to camp, we felt so good, better than those
who stayed. We did well. We received double rations for getting out to work and
extra food for the double amount of wood chopping. We saw that the
devil is not so bad. Actually in the frost, when a man does not lower himself to
the lowest, but instead holds himself steady and works, he feels alive and his
mood doesn't sink. He can hold on. After a few
months we knew more about the conditions in the camp. I joined a group of
builders who built the barracks, and did not feel a shortage anymore. Those who worked
in the camp got up at seven, and didn't have to stand in line. After all the
groups had already left for work, we went to take food. And we got something
better. One more spoonful of food, one more piece of bread. We were the happy
ones. I was one of the
best at work, and became head of a group of builders in the carpentry. No
longer lived in the barracks, but made me a place in the carpentry. I went to
breakfast at seven-thirty, and had dinner first, before the groups returned
from work. I lived a life that could be relied upon, and indeed left healthy
the camp. There were many
Gypsy women in the camp. They were given ten years for vagrancy. In Russia
everyone should have a place of work and residential address. The Gypsies
brought with them their quilts. Because I worked in a carpentry and had a lot
of bread, I bought with it from them the
quilts. I slept well and at night they would come sometimes to get warm with me. I was not in any
social activity. All our thoughts were how we shell hold ourselves. We figured
it was not forever. Finally we shell get out of here. We knew very little about
the war. Sometimes came to us about a month old newspaper, which wrapped a package
received from one of the families. We gathered all of us, and he who could read
Russian well read every word. We added information from here and there and in
this way got a picture of what happened in the world. I met in the
camp a Jew who was in Birobidzhan. He ran away from it and was sentenced for
ten years. He told how difficult it was there with the food. Supply was so poor
that they were starving sometimes. Once they recieved barrels of herring. There
stomach was so empty, that they started drinking the salty water. Afterwards their
stomach started to burn and they could not sleep all the night. We had to sit
there for three years. But in 1942 an agreement was signed between the USSR and
Sikorski from Poland in London, and all those who fled from Poland were freed.
After a year and a half I was free. We had to sit
there for three years. But in 1942 the agreement was signed between the USSR
Sikorski in London, and let all those who fled from Poland. After a year and a
half I was free. I felt very
healthy. I learned a lesson that what ever will happens to me, any troubles that
will be, if I will not fall in spirit, and just hold high the mood, I'll
manage. This is how you can survive all the troubles. F. Kazakhstan Commerce After we were reliesed,
we were sent to Kazakhstan, to a kolkhoz near the city Turkestan. We were five
friends who were together in the camp. It is very important, when you're in trouble,
to have some friends who hold out together with you in one group, helping each
other. We were not equal. One was a worker, one lad sitting, the other a
yeshiva student . But fate brought us together. We were together. When someone
missing something, he got it from the others. So when we left, we gave the word
that we will continue to be together. It was winter,
and it was pretty cold over there. In the summer it is fifty above zero and in
winter twenty below zero. It was worse in Central Asia more then in Siberia,
where it is dry and quiet. We suffered from
the cold but didn't receive a house to live in. We received only a small clay
hut, the size of a dog kennel. We had to take hay from field and put in instead
of mattresses. We received millstones
and wheat which we had to grind. We baked small flat pitas. We learned how to
do it quickly. We started to
work in the kolkhoz. We saw the the situation there is miserable, and the kolkhozniks
are vey poor. They work in the fields, give all to the government warehouses,
and in return receive food rations and tattered and torn clothing. But we knew that
for us this situation is temporary. As we were released from the camp, we will
free ourselves from here. We are here just to get through the war. We began to
hear some more from Poland and the war and thought that the five of us will
survive. We'll manage somehow and leave healthy. What have we
done? We made an arrangment that every time each one of us went out to the wide
world. We were about 500 kilometers north of Tashkent. We knew that in Tashkent
there is a plenty, because there's a novel called: 'Tashkent, City of Bread'.
We wanted to go there and bring good things. We studied the
structure of the economy in the area: I In one place there is only potatoes. In
Arys there is plenty of salt. Around Tashkent only wheat, white flour and
bread. In the east, closer to China, there is only rice but no potatoes or
flour. In Jambul in the east there are alcohol factories. In Tashkent the winter
clothings and fabrics are very cheap. It is hot there all the time, and everyone
sell the winter clothes they received in ration. We had to work. Without
a working ticket it was impossible. We all registered ourselves to work. But
each time one of us took few days off and was on the road with the goods. It was forbidden
to travel by train without permission. You had to report to the authorities
about the purpose of each trip. So how to travel? You will not get a permission
to go and buy stuff like that in the black market. We traveled on
the roof of the train, or in the following way: Each train on the Moscow-Tashkent
route was passing through our station at night. We went with 'smart guys' like
us, from all kinds of farming communities, including many Jews, and gave 'dues'
to the NKVD. They went through all the cars to check who travel without
permission. Each one of us gave a hundred rubles to someone who knew the guard
and he took them to the NKVD. The policeman who passed and saw us recognized in
the faces who belongs to the gang. We traveled east
and bought suitcases full of rice. Then we traveled to Tashkent overnight and
sold it on the market. We bought warm clothes and traveled back to Jambul, again
over night. In Jambul we sold the clothes, bought some cheap alcohol, and
returned to the kolkhoz. There for alcohol you could get the king himself. With
the money we bought all kinds of good food. Once I wanted to
get out of Tashkent. I was full on the body with fabrics I wrapped around me.
Above the fabric I was wearing two hot suits. I arrived to the station, but there
I've had a problem. The guard changed. The Guard that took money was not on the
train. You could not travel on that train. I waited a few
hours. The next train does not leave till noon the next day. If I'll walk
around with these clothes, certainly the police will arrest me. What did I do? I
got on a freight train. I saw connecting a locomotive to a freight train to north
direction. I climbed to the car and the train really went my way. But when the
train came to the city where I had to go down it was already daylight. Military
personnel moved around in the station. I do not know if it was every day, or they
were just looking for someone who ran away, but they caught me. They took me to
the police immediately. They took away everything, and sat me down for three
weeks in prison. Then there was a trial. The trial was
not because I was carrying these things. I said I went to buy them for all the
guys. One is getting married, I told, and I had to buy clothes for the young
couple. For that they did not do anything to me. Just that you should not
travel by freight train and there is no excuse for that. This is an order
without ease, and the penalty prescribed by law is one year in prison. I also got a
'one'. All things were returned to me, but I got a year in a labor camp. They sent
me to Shymkent, in the crossroad between Tashkent, Jambul and Turkestan, to a
bombs factory. G. Bombs Foundry and Friends In this labor
camp there were about five thousand men. The next morning, all the new ones,
about six hundred and fifty, stood in the yard in order, in long lines, four in
a row. The labor camp manager
came and started hanging around us. I saw in his face that he was a Jew, I knew
immediately. He began to walk
among us and shouted so hard, that the ground shook. I thought:
"A dog of some kind is surely standing in front of me". He started
asking: "Who has a profession? Come out!" Since I worked
in construction and carpentry in the camps and knew carpentry, I stepped
forward. "What are you?" He asked. I replied:
"I'm a carpenter." He began to
curse me such curses, that you can not put them in the mouth in Hebrew:
"What! You! You'll spoil the eggs here! Ai! Go back!" In such strong
shouts that I was afraid and went back to the row. Finally, after
all that, we went to work, all of us, In bombs casting. It was not far away to
go and the work was not that bad. It was just very hot. In all of these
camps there is also a manager from the prisoners who is responsible for the
chief manager. Suddenly, at ten o'clock at night, when I was on the bed, I
heard him start shouting: "Zandman to the manager!" We all knew that
if the N.K.V.D call you in the evening or at night, there is something harsh,
penalty or arrest. I got up and went to him. I went in and I was shaking. I did
not know what it is. "Sit
down", he said and looked at the papers: "I see here what kind of a
criminal past you have", he laughed. He saw that I
was punished only because I traveled without permission and I'm not a great
offender. He continued:
"Well. I'll give you a note. You'll go to our engineer and she'll fix you
in the carpentry. You will not have to go to work in the foundry. He started
talking to me in Yiddish and asked where I am from, what country, and so on. Such
things that I wanted to cry. I saw what a Jewish heart sits in front of me. A
commander of five thousand prisoners, criminals and murderers, and he is
behaving like this, like a brother, a father. The next day,
instead of going to work, I went to the engeneer. I entered and saw a woman,
something extraordinary. She looked like a rabbi's dauther or a young rabbi's
wife, with the black hair and such delicate face. She gave me a permit to work
in the carpentry. I took the note
to the carpentry. There was there one man from Korea. We did not talk much. He
just asked me, 'How much do you have? " I answered:
"A year". He said:
"Ay, I have twenty". He is for twenty years, and was sitting already
five years. Worked in several places and now he runs the carpentry. I started
working in the carpentry shop. I felt no shortage. After six months
in the camp the manager called me again. He spoke to me in Yiddish and said:
"Look, you know, I want to make you unguarded prisoner. You can go outside
without guard. But if you do any trick and run away, you put in the pit three
Jews". He told me also who
signed the permit for me to get out without guard. He, regional general manager
of all the camps, and another one who was one of the big chiefs there. All the
managers there were Jews. One brought the other. Since then,
every time they needed to arrange something at home they were calling me, and I
went out and fixed it. But why he
wanted to make me a prisoner without guard I learned only later. In what did he
use me? He was married. He had a wife, children, and so on. In his office was
working a young woman, also married, and they fell in love. He had to arrange
secret meetings, and let me go out so he could send someone to arrange the
meetings. One evening I
will never forget. It was the eve of Passover. I was already in the quarters.
Suddenly the prisoner in charge and began shouting: "Zandman to the manager"! Everyone sayed: "You
must have done something, a speculation, you're a speculator". I entered the
office. He sat there and said: "Let's see who remembers more of the
Passover Haggadah, me or you". He started to
say fairly large parts of the Passover Haggadah. I also said a little, and so
we sat for half an hour until he said: "Well, enough, go to sleep". But the camp there
was also a Jewish primary physician. He had the rank of colonel, and was
responsible for twenty-five thousand prisoners in all the camps around. A week
before Passover he invited me to his house for Passover eve in eight o'clock to
fix the closet doors that did not close properly. I went to him. I
entered the house. In the first room there was nobody. I just heard a woman's
voice from the other room, asking me to wait, she is about to come down. Then
she came. A woman of about sixty, with a little rouge on the lips, and dressed
as a rabbi's wife, with something on her head. She said to me: "I dressed
up beautifully and it means that I appreciate you". Until the doctor
came I sat and talked with the woman. It turns out that already in the Czar
they both learned medicine, he in Paris and she in Russia. She brought an expensive
box, took out letters and showed me the letters in French he wrote to her when
he was a student in France. We sat for a
while. Then the doctor came home. There was no Passover Haggadah. There were
thin pitas as Matzot and a bottle of wine. We sat, and from what I recalled I conducted
the holy meal and said the Haggadah. He repeated word a word and did not want
to miss anything. Then he took out
a book of stories by Y.L. Peretz in Yiddish and asked me to read him. He could
not read Yiddish. I sat there
until eleven o'clock, read and told him stories that I remembered. They were
very intelligent, very gentle, and I appreciated them very much as Jews.
Despite running camps of the biggest criminals they were with a great Jewish
heart. 3. After the War H. Ruined Poland After Poland was
liberated by the Russians I came back there. I came to Lodz and I met my older
sister Gutta, who was in the Lodz ghetto during the whole war. Her husband had
a lumberyard and he continued to run it for the Judenrat. Gutta had a
young groom who worked cleaning trains cars returning from the death camps. In these wagons some
of the victims hid, before sent to their deaths, notes which told of what is
going to happen to them. The groom found these
notes and told about them to the ghetto. As a result he
was in mortal danger from Bibov, the Nazi commander of the city. He and his wife
hid behind a false wall before the ghetto's elimination. Every day Bibov
took Guttta, her husband and their young son, and slap them for hours with a whip,
in order to force them to reveal where the hiding place is. They did not
break up. Bibov left alive
seven hundreds Jews from the entire ghetto. Gutta was among
them. This was in
order that they will clean up his offices and destroy all evidence of his
crimes. Bibov planned to
murder them after they'll finish cleaning. They dug their
own grave to make a burriel place for themselves. Bibov fled
before he could complete his scheme. Gutta told me
that she found out that my wife and sons were sent to Treblinka, along with
everyone in the big house where we lived in Warsaw. A neighbor who survived the
holocaust told her that she saw them standing in a group in front of the house
and go up to the lorries. The house was in
Mila street, not far from the headquarters of the Warsaw rebellion. I returned to
Warsaw. From the house in the ghetto was left only a heap of stones. One of the few
remaining intact buildings was of my rich religous uncle Mendel Zandman. He had nine
children. He killed himself together with his large family before they were sent
to the death kamp. The house was
empty and many books were thrown on the floor. Hundred and
fifty members of the Zandman extensive family perished in the holocaust. I organized a
carpentry cooperative in Lodz with fifteen members. We got from the party
machinery and a place and started working. But I wanted to
immigrate to Israel. After two years
in Poland I traveled to Bergen - Belzen. I. Theatre in Bergen
Belsen In Bergen-Belzen
I founded with friends a Yiddish theatre. Its name was 'Theatre of the Jewish
workers'. We presented Yiddish
plays to refugees all over Germany. I was the
theater manager, director, plays adaptor, and one of the main actors. Our most
successful play was 'The Treasure', according to David Pinsky's book. This play
deals with a cripple who tells that he discovered a treasure in the graveyard. The
relation of his town men to him improve beyond recognition, until it becomes clear
that there is no treasure there. I played in the cripple. Another Play that
we presented was 'The Deaf' by David Bergelson. The play deals with a deaf
worker in a flour mill, who falls in love with the mill owner's dauther. I played
the owner mill's owner. Another play was
'The Mutiny' by Y.B. Tzipor. Peasants rebel against their landlord who demands
their daughters on their wedding night. I played the landlaord. J. Immigration to Israel After nearly two
years in Bergen-Belzen I immigrated to Israel. I traveled to
Israel on the ship 'Kedma', along with many friends. On the ship was also an
entire football team, which played in the league in Bergen-Belzen. In Haifa port
waited for us a group of military men, led by Yitzhak Sadeh. A doctor gave us
tests and we were recruited to the army. I was too old to be a soldier and was
released. From the port they
sent the immigrants who'd been drafted to Latrun battles. Many of them lost
their lives, including most members of the football team. Other friends of mine
died in Negba battles. I settled in Haifa
and set up a carpentry cooperative named "The Builders". The Carpentry's
place was at Bar-Yehuda and Yad-Labanim crossroad. We planned to build
the members apartments nearby and recieved a license for it. But we got an
offer to move to larger place in Tel-Hannan and unite there with another
cooperative. It's been too much and after a few years I got tired. I retired and
started with my new wife, Golda, an independent business. |